UC Berkeley plans to cut another 200 jobs

EDUCATION

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau makes opening remarks before the Dalai Lama speaks to a sold out crowd about "Peace Through Compassion" at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, Calif., on Saturday, April 25, 2009. less

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau makes opening remarks before the Dalai Lama speaks to a sold out crowd about "Peace Through Compassion" at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, Calif., on Saturday, April 25, ... more

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

Image
1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau makes opening remarks before the Dalai Lama speaks to a sold out crowd about "Peace Through Compassion" at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, Calif., on Saturday, April 25, 2009. less

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau makes opening remarks before the Dalai Lama speaks to a sold out crowd about "Peace Through Compassion" at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, Calif., on Saturday, April 25, ... more

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

UC Berkeley plans to cut another 200 jobs

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

UC Berkeley, pegged by efficiency experts as bloated with too many managers, will eliminate about 200 jobs early next year to save $20 million, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau has announced.

"We cannot continue with our current administrative structures and operations and be the best run public university in the country," Birgeneau said in a letter to employees Tuesday.

The job elimination will be achieved through "a combination of attrition, retirements, voluntary separations and layoffs" after January, the chancellor said.

That's on top of 600 positions already eliminated since last year.

It's not yet clear how many employees will be laid off in this round, said Claire Holmes, a university spokeswoman.

But 27 departments - from the Haas School of Business and the College of Chemistry, for example, to the chancellor's office itself - have been instructed to cast a critical eye over their management structure and see where positions can be reduced and combined, Holmes said.

"This is the beginning of that conversation," Holmes said.

The job elimination is part of a campuswide effort at efficiency begun last year when UC Berkeley hired Bain & Co., a Massachusetts consulting firm, to identify waste.

For now, they say that buying goods more efficiently could save the campus the cost of hiring Bain: $7.5 million in fees and bonuses. Earning that full amount is contingent on whether Bain can show that in the first year, its recommendations have saved more than $7 million.

In his back-to-school remarks last month, Birgeneau sounded an optimistic tone about campus finances one year after the state's budget crisis forced Berkeley to cut $140 million from its budget.

Birgeneau said the optimism came from several sources: a $7 million increase in gifts from donors; a 32 percent increase in tuition; and savings anticipated from Operational Excellence, the name given to Bain & Co.'s efficiency measures.

"Becoming operationally excellent will decrease our administrative costs and allow us to invest as much of our resources as possible in teaching and research and to support our faculty and students as effectively as possible," Birgeneau said in his letter to employees.

To some, however, cutting 200 positions will have the opposite effect.